NYC Youth Leadership Councils (YLCs) are a network of youth groups focused on policy, practice, and advocacy to make local change happen.

Each YLC is a space to team up with others, share ideas, create solutions, and put those solutions into action with the support from City agencies, schools, and community organizations.

Find a YLC and apply now.

Your voice can make a difference in your community.

YLC members create solutions for:

• Advocating for mental health support and resources
• Preventing gun violence in communities
• Influencing citywide environmental sustainability awareness initiatives
• Encouraging nutritious diets and healthy lifestyles
• Connecting youth to digital resources for research and advocacy
• Using art as a tool for social action
• And more!

For a full list of active YLCs and the issues they’re working on, visit the YLC Application.

Reasons why others have joined YLCs:

• To learn how to influence their neighborhood and city
• To gain insight into college and career opportunities
• To get community service hours for school or their resume
• To develop professional and life skills
• To gain more confidence in communicating ideas
• To meet similar people from different neighborhoods across NYC
• To receive a certificate signed by the mayor to include in their resume

How to Apply

Find out the requirements for joining a YLC and the simple steps you can take to apply.

Who’s Eligible

You can apply to a YLC if you’re between ages 14 and 21 and currently enrolled in high school or an equivalency program.

The Application

Applying is easy! You can discover which YLC(s) to join, fill out your application information, and attach additional files using one simple form.

Helpful tips to apply:

• Read the description of YLCs by selecting them from the YLC dropdown
• Apply to up a maximum of three YLCs
• If you want to save and finish the application later, follow the instructions at the “Save and Resume Later; link at the bottom of the form

Click Here to apply!

Youth Organizing to Save Our Streets (YO S.O.S.) is the youth branch of Save Our Streets Brooklyn. YO S.O.S. gathers young people who have been exposed to violence and who want to make social change and trains them to become peer educators and community organizers in the movement to end gun violence.

APPLY HERE

Through a combination of hands-on workshops and community organizing opportunities over the course of 8 months, YO S.O.S. participants develop fundamental leadership skills including public speaking, team work, creative problem solving, emotional regulation, networking, event planning, resume writing, and campaign strategies among others. Participants who successfully complete the program receive a stipend, community service credit, and assistance in securing paid summer employment or internship positions.

Interactive Workshops:

YO S.O.S. offers after-school workshops 1-2 times a week designed to help participants process the adversity they’ve faced in their lives; build new knowledge and skills; and become powerful leaders in their communities. Workshops cover topics such as community organizing and youth activism, roots of violence, trauma and mental health, conflict de-escalation, diversity and social justice, media literacy, and leadership and communication styles. In addition to core content, workshops are designed to develop transferable skills including public speaking, teamwork, and critical thinking.

Community Organizing and Peer Education:

YO S.O.S. participants work together to design and implement public education campaigns to bring awareness to the issue of gun violence in the community and promote healing and social change. Youth Organizers learn about organizing methods, messaging and marketing, event planning, and group facilitation and deliver workshops and presentations to other youth and to adult stakeholders. Youth Organizers are encouraged to use creative, cutting edge methods to ensure that their campaign messages successfully reach the broader NYC youth community. In the past this has included visual arts, hip-hop song creation and music video production, short film, spoken word poetry, theater, and more. YO S.O.S. also participates in community anti-violence projects, cultural enrichment field trips, and related service projects including the annual Arts to End Violence gallery and block party and the Save Our Streets talent show.

3 C’s: College, Career, and Counseling:

YO S.O.S. participants are exposed to educational and work opportunities throughout the program year. This includes workshops on resume building, interviewing skills, and professionalism in the workplace. Participants also go on college tours, hear from speakers from various career paths, and collaborate with staff to identify their own strengths, interests, and future goals. Towards the end of the program year, staff work with Youth Organizers to place them in summer employment positions or internships.

Additionally, YO S.O.S. applies a strong trauma-informed lens for all programming and service provision. Participants are assigned to a staff mentor who attends to their individual needs, providing one-on-one check-ins with participants, contacting families as needed, and offering customized case management support. As part of the YO S.O.S. curriculum, youth participate in psychoeducational sessions to develop an understanding of trauma’s impact on the brain and on one’s lived experiences. They discuss the connection between community violence and trauma, exploring the four identified categories of trauma symptoms: hyperarousal, avoidance, re-experiencing, and negative alterations in mood and cognition. Youth also participate in workshops on self-care, stress management, and resiliency building.

APPLY HERE

YO S.O.S. by the Numbers:

• Launched in 2011
• Served more than 250 students on-site from more than 50 schools
• Students are 14-18 and Anti-Violence Interns are 14-24
• Majority of students are from Central Brooklyn, including Crown Heights, Bed-Stuy, Brownsville, East Flatbush and East New York
• Participants receive community service credit and stipends
• Active alumni network includes resource sharing, case management, and paid internships

MISSION exalt elevates expectations of personal success for youth ages 15-19 who’ve been involved in the criminal justice system. We inspire youth at a critical crossroads to believe in their worth, from the first steps in contemplation through the journey to create lasting behavioral change. Our powerful combination of structured classes for tangible skill development, individualized support to navigate the education and justice systems, placement in paid internships and an alumni network of resources equips youth with the tools and experience to avoid further criminal justice system involvement. At exalt, we empower youth to see a future filled with hope—and we provide the road map to get there.

GOAL exalt’s goal is to be a transformative adolescent development experience rather than simply a job readiness program. All aspects of our program are designed to help participants develop four core skills: critical thinking, communication, creative problem solving, and “resource management”—the ability to identify, effectively utilize, leverage and develop resources. These core skills are recognized and emphasized by national employment standards and deemed as protective factors against (further) juvenile justice involvement by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.¹

METHODOLOGY exalt sees personal transformation as a process driven by intrinsic motivation to create lasting behavioral change. With that belief, we have developed a program that caters to youth’s desire for change while acknowledging the barriers they face. We seek to equip youth with a foundation for long-term behavioral change through a structured, supportive program with an approach that aligns with the established and respected Stages of Change model.

The Stages of Change model revolutionized traditional approaches to helping people change or end deep-rooted behaviors, including those with measurable endings, such as drug addiction, to those with less clear endings, such as depression. Its central premise is that behavior change is a process, not an event. By outlining this process by “stages” of change, from pre-contemplation before someone is ready to initiate change, to “maintenance,” when the old behavior has been avoided for a long time, this model underscores the difficulty inherent in making substantive and long-lasting behavior change. The illustration of this difficult process shows the importance of recognizing progress from one stage to another as well as the non-linear nature of behavior change. Each phase of exalt’s program aligns with one of the Stages of Change. We see our youth succeed in “maintaining” behavior change through their sustained avoidance of justice system involvement and progression toward their education goals, well past completion of our program.

PROGRAM STRUCTURE

1. Intake & Engagement Phase Youth (ages 15–19) are referred by partners such as the Department of Probation, OCFS, and the Legal Aid Society, and screened according to intake assessment criteria that gauge their educational, criminal justice and living circumstances, as well as their interest in participating in new experiences and applying themselves to learning new skills. In order to draw direct and necessary connections for our participants between education and employment, exalt youth must be enrolled in high school or an alternative educational (GED) program. In instances where strong candidates are not enrolled, exalt assists them enroll in appropriate educational settings. During the 2–4 weeks from the time that participants first interview for an upcoming cycle and the Orientation of that cycle, they come in for weekly appointments with the Program Coordinator to complete a set of baseline assessments including the STAR to gauge their reading/academic levels, and a newly designed pre –assessment that gauges their comprehension and utilization of the four core skills exalt focuses on as well as other employability and life skills covered in our curriculum.

2. Pre and Post Internship Training Each program cycle starts with a group of 17 youth who first participate in a 6-week class, which runs Monday through Thursday, from 4:30–6:30pm, building skills in the four core areas referenced above. Traditional and necessary employment readiness skills such as interviewing, professional comportment, teamwork and developing resumes are subsumed under these large skill areas. Our proprietary curriculum weaves important historical, social, and economic context with tangible skill development to make content relevant and applicable for students.

3. Internships Participants who complete the 6-week training interview for and work in paid internships (which exalt raises funds for) developed to match youths’ interests, developmental needs, skills and experiences for two months. During internships participants attend weekly classes at exalt to process and evaluate their experiences, and reinforce the skills emphasized during the pre-internship training. Internship supervisors also act as mentors, providing further education and career guidance. Our inclusion of internships in our program model stems from documented evidence that structured, substantive work experiences help adolescents generate more tangible visions for their adulthoods and better recognize the importance of their own self-development, including completing their education.²

Internship partners range from art galleries, to visual animation shops, law offices, alternative healing centers and architecture firms. Most of our partners are small-to-medium size businesses or nonprofits, which generally have more intimate settings, allowing exalt interns to gain a sense of how the entire operation functions and the varying roles within. No matter what type of tasks interns are taking on, they have the opportunity to interact with multiple staff in a myriad of roles.

4. Alumni Network This component provides ongoing access to educational support, career exploration and other resources. Our staff develops and manages relationships with multiple external constituents including schools exalt participants and graduates attend, potential new internship providers, and additional resources for program alumni such as job opportunities, college enrollment assistance and other programs that meet their interests and needs.

LEARN MORE HERE!